I'll throw in my marker, although since I'm pretty much guessing at the rules at the moment I'd like to get a link to them before fully committing if possible. Exactly what your game will consist of is frustratingly ambiguous from quickly reading only this thread and the last.

That should help a bit with the rules stuff, I'll design a side shortly and have it posted by Tuesday. There are a few inconsistencies, like that post saying that some units can't have multiple specials (any unit that can purchase specials can have multiple specials), but that should cover most of the rules.

Edit:And there are a few places that I'd like to ask for clarification, especially regarding what list of specials we're using for this game. thetobias had a good list (I thought it was good, at least), but if anyone could direct me to that list, I'd be much obliged, seeing as I can't seem to find it now.

That appears to be a very early version of the rules (link) used for Twoy's Titanic Mandate v. Elder Gods (link) game. Is there a specific version of that ruleset which we're using that should be referenced? It should be noted that those rules, particularly those for casters, are unbalanced and eminently breakable.

This is indeed a free for all. To put it simply, this game is in beta. It has been in beta since after the first game I tried with it, (and in fact I was the one who created the basic rules those other games are using as a platform) where we had five people and it imploded due to the workload required. Three is my limit, and I'm admitting help will probably be needed down the line.

Several notes/addendums on those rules given:

- Infantry units do not get specials. They do not get points to BUY specials with. Thier points are solely for giving a little customization to the stats to make your base level units more unique. Only Special and Knight-Class units can buy abilities.

- On Warlords: It has been shown in very recent times that Warlords can be popped with several unusual but useful specials, like flying. I will probably make up some sort of little table where any warlord or caster popped has a (small) chance to have Flying or Dance Fighting. Depending on their gear and theme of your side I may increase the chance too, at my discretion. Example: Transilvito has a large number of Warlords who possess flying. While this may be a result of exterior forces such as a caster or artifact, for now I will assume it is a kind of "The Titans Provide" mechanic.

- Scouts: Not really sure about the scout promotion. It's essessinally pointless, since Scouts barely take any time to pop anyway. I'm nixing it unless that shows up in the comic. Just make a scout, easy as that.

- Knights: All knights have the Rider special. They may at any time during your turn be promoted to Heavies at a cost ot 200 Smuckers and a +50 increase to their Upkeep thereafter. They also gain some juicy stat bonuses to everything but speed, but lose Rider (And furthermore will cause any flying units they are riding to plummet.. >_>). This is not a reversable process. I don't recall unit-state demotion being possible in Erfworld, but if it bugs you we will talk about it.

- Casters: Erfworld magic is NOT Vancian. It bears almost no resemblance to the Vancian styles of magic you see in D&D. Therefore, disregard the spell lists beyond as a guideline for stuff they can do. Much like a game of Mage: The Ascension I will be moderating juice costs for whatever the caster does when they do it. There are some spells premade that many casters have, such, like Haboken. But a the same time, until Parson did the Volcano Trick, no one had even thought such an idea up. No research was required to perform it either, they just did it. The listed caster popping rules are not what I will be using. I have a calculation that decides whether a warlord is a caster or not based on the number of casters you already have. Sides with no casters have a 1/2 chance to get one, then 1/4 with one caster, then 1/16, etc. It is also RANDOMLY DETERMINED (though some casters are more common like Thinkamancers, and some more rare like Dirtamancers). The Titans (me) will provide you with casters, but they may not give you your ideal setup. These are powerful units that change gameplay and I'm sure you're all intelligent enough to find a use for them.

-Abilities: If you have an idea for an ability you want to use not on the list, tell me. I am a reasonable guy and as long as it's not going to be game breaking I may work with you.

- Captured status: A captive unit is considered to belong to the side holding it hostage, but with a loyalty score somewhere around 0 depending on circumstances. They pay upkeep for their captive unit but it is useless to them until turned. You may not disband your unit if it is Captive to another side(though you may try and rescue it). That is silly and defies the purpose of even bothering.

Other questions?

_________________UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

Last edited by Kaed on Sat Jun 16, 2012 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Could you link a specific set of rules that we should be using as the definitive reference, except as modified by the exceptions and alterations that you're citing here? Some of the things that you just said don't seem to be strictly referencing either v0.02a or v0.39 of the rules, which are the only ones that have been linked here so far aside from a forum post which is incomplete at best. I need a "those rules given" to be working off of here- the fact that the game is in beta makes it that much more important to ensure that the old versions of the rules that are floating around, or those which have been modified by others in ways you don't plan to use, aren't potentially confusing the issue.

Your comment on getting abilities not on the list, your line about casting, and general sense of your post implies to me that there's a certain amount of flexibility and flavor-over-mechanics that will apply here so I'm not too worried, but I'd still like a solid base to work from if possible.

Given the emphasis being placed on flavor here, would I be correct in thinking that you would consider a few paragraphs on the themes and ideas of a side and how we wish for it to develop to be just as important as the preliminary stats we put together for our units?

Unfortunately... There really isn't. The closest thing I've seen is the google docs one nihila posted up there. The issue is somewhat complicated by the fact that after I made the Ur Rules, they became open source. People took them and adapted them to fit their desire for a gaming setting. Which is okay, I made those to have fun with and I'm not going to have purity rants over it.

Except there is also problem that I continued to update the rules as I went... But never documented it. The Primary Goal of my game is to create as perfect and faithful a representation of Erfworld as is possible. That means by definition it is a work in progress. We are missing mountains of data still... But there is enough to try working out the basic things and have some fun.

Tl;dr - use the google docs one and I will guide you as you go... And probably try to write stuff down this time. >_>;

As for the flavor over mechanic most definitely. Much like erfworld itself. I'm being your GM here, not your calculator.

_________________UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

Unfortunately... There really isn't. The closest thing I've seen is the google docs one nihila posted up there. The issue is somewhat complicated by the fact that after I made the Ur Rules, they became open source. People took them and adapted them to fit their desire for a gaming setting. Which is okay, I made those to have fun with and I'm not going to have purity rants over it.

Except there is also problem that I continued to update the rules as I went... But never documented it. The Primary Goal of my game is to create as perfect and faithful a representation of Erfworld as is possible. That means by definition it is a work in progress. We are missing mountains of data still... But there is enough to try working out the basic things and have some fun.

Tl;dr - use the google docs one and I will guide you as you go... And probably try to write stuff down this time. >_>;

As for the flavor over mechanic most definitely. Much like erfworld itself. I'm being your GM here, not your calculator.

_________________UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

Sorry, one quick question:</br>Do we get Terrain Capabilities for our terrain of choice? For that matter, do we get to pick a terrain at all, for starting locations and the like?

Absolutely! The session will take place in a little flat world somewhere around couple hundred hexes to a side. Maybe less. But you may choose a terrain proficiency (mountain, forest, desert, maybe water) and that will determine your starting location and give you a small advantage in your home turf by reducing the movement penalty. You do not NEED a terrain proficiency... But I think I may let a side that does not pick one have a couple extra points to spend on all their units.

Or maybe let them request that a certain special like flying be more common with their warlords.

Like from 5% to 15% chance when popped. Not astronomical but in the long term very useful.

Yeah. I like this. You can start with a terrain proficiency, two extra points for all your units, or increased chance of a warlord special.

_________________UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

Last edited by Kaed on Sat Jun 16, 2012 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Been contemplating flavor; I'm thinking a desert side whose units and themes are drawn from two iconic works of fiction related to the terrain type- the Fremen of Dune and the Arabian myth of One Thousand and One Nights. Something like this for a tentative unit list:

First, Move values. Is there a strong reason that the infantry and Specials A/B/C are so low on Move compared to other units, and Special D units are so ridiculously fast (more than twice the speed of anything else except the scout)? That makes it almost impossible to make a good mount unit out of a Special A/B and extremely difficult to do with Special C without crippling it as a unit. As written there are no fairly common mount units, only the spectacularly expensive kind. It seems more reasonable to me to start off all units with the same base Move and have them upgrade if they spend points on it- there's not really any reason that a warlord should be popped with higher move than a Stabber, since they're going to be units of the same rough appearance and can use mounts if they need to go faster, and the Specials might get flavored as humanoid and thus make it logical to match their Move as well. If the Move rules stay as written I'll probably have to drop Ebony Horse as a unit because building an effective speedy flying mount out of a Special B unit is simply impossible.

As written Knights have two types, rider and heavy; your errata up above in this thread is presumably meant to override this and eliminate the existence of the heavy variant? Is this something which must apply to all type of knight (presumably not, as I recall that archons are a type of knight-class unit and I seriously doubt heavy archons are a thing) or can we trade in the option to give them some other feature?

The various types of jinn in mythology (which includes the jinn, ifrit, and marid units in the vague plans above, to be clear) are all naturally hidden/invisible to humans, at least in some tales- in others they're not. Would it be possible to reflect this by spending points on some kind of ability that grants a stealth bonus or a natural veiling of some kind?

I'm not entirely sure how to build the sandworms. Key characteristics are burrowing, being huge, being extremely difficult to kill, and being able to detect prey from a long way off and rapidly come to devour it from below. Obviously things would have to be scaled down a bit in terms of deadliness and size to fit into an Erfworld setting, but... maybe just Mount and Burrowing for movement and stacking Sonic Breath with Battlecrap for combat would work out. That would leave it as only 15/10/10/12 but massively deadly against ground targets, which could work. I do wish there was some kind of detection ability to take, though... maybe some kind of natural findamancy? Hurts their stats to lose the points but I'd like to wrangle something.

Speaking of that, I was thinking to build the Fedaykin with natural predictamancy for use in combat; reading through the description of predictamancy's combat applications in the text updates seems to fit well with the description of their martial art style. I'm not sure how well magic use like that maps to stats, though.

The Army of the Mountain King: Royal SideSpecialty Terrain: Mountains (In case you hadn’t guessed)

Long-hidden, scarcely holding a single city, the Mountain King brooded deep in his mountainousfortress, until such time that he could unleash his prepared army of Natural Allies, Men, and Dirtamantic constructs. With his Dirtamancy, he raises and controls his forces, but unfortunately the effort prevents him from casting any kind of spell, and most say that he has forgotten how in the thousands of turns since he saw the surface. Now hoping to unleash his forces upon the surrounding world, he will raise the Army of the Mountain King!

30: Rock Armour: Stabber: 5-4-4-3; Mountain Capable—Shells of stone animated by Dirtamancy and a small amount of Rhyme-o-mancy, some call these tireless soldiers, but others insist that Men inhabit the incredible armour. Whatever their true origin, they serve as the front line of the Army.20 (30): Tunnel Guard: Piker: 7-3-4-0(2); Mountain Capable—The Mountain King recruited these units early on, transforming Men into deadly defenders at home in the dark tunnels of the Lost City, Atal.30: Eagew Eyes: Scout: 3-1-0-10; Scout Range=6; Flight; Mountain Capable—Raven-like birds with eyes as sharp as those of an eagle, the secretive scouts hunted out the Mountain King rather than vice-versa, and offered him their service hundreds of turns past.30 (40): Dark Moon Hunters: Archers: 5-8-1-0 (2); Ranged; Mountain Capable—Tracing their lineage to the deadly archers of the plains of Erfworld, the Dark Moon Archers boast that they can hunt a mouse on a night of a dark moon. While certainly exaggerated, most to point out this exaggeration have only ever pointed it out once.90: Earthen Tigers: Knights: 10-6-5-5; Rider; Limited Dirtamancy; Fabrication; Mountain Capable—Named for the twin statues in the throne room of Atal, the Earthen Tigers craft golems, items, and statues with ease. They then lead their golems into battle, alongside the Mountain King’s other high-level servants.

40: Atalian Horse: A-Unit: 6-3-3-7; Mount; Mountain Capable—The only animal native to the Lost City, Atalian Horses, though slower than other mounts, climb mountains with contemptuous ease, moving through passes and over peaks as easily as their counterparts gallop over plains.40: Road Layer: B-Unit: 6-3-3-5; Builder; Surveyor; Mountain Capable—Deep in the mountains, the Mountain Lords strive to construct Mines, Roads, and other necessary fortifications, and the Road Layers strive with them. When they complete a task, some will stay to supervise the progress of a Mine, providing the Kingdom with their skill in Schmuckers.80: Death Harper: C-Unit: 6-4(8)-4-5; Leadership; Dance-Fighting; Mountain Capable—Their songs, though beautiful in an eerie way, cause chills to run up the spines of most Men, but the Mountain King employs these murderous musicians as leaders of his troops, who take direction and strength from the unnatural noises.250: Earth Master: D-Unit: 15-6(10)-6-12; Limited Dirtamancy; Leadership; Dance-Fighting; Acid Breath; Limited Dollamancy—A single Earth Master can be devastating to enemy stacks. Capable of calling up a half-dozen weak Golems from the ground, boosting them with a variant of the Death Harpers’ Music, and striking at enemy stacks with their own acidic tricks, these favourites of the Mountain King rarely pop, and rarely set forth but to destroy.

60: Clay Racer: Sloop: 6-2-2-9; 8 Cargo; Water Capable—Fast, swiftly carved from the river clay, these basic troop transports are built for evasion, not combat. In fights, the hastily constructed clay breaks down, causing the units inside to plunge to a watery grave.90: Porcelain Transport: Galley: 8-3-3-7; 24 Cargo; Water Capable—Sacrificing speed and strength for cargo space and beauty, the Porcelain Transports of the Mountain King would be considered antiques and works of art, except for the two dozen murderous beings inevitably inside the cargo hold.130: Steel Murder: Galleon: 10-21-5-5; 32 Cargo; Ranged; Water Capable—Designed for pure attack power, a Steel Murder’s thin, metallic hull is engraved with scenery of mining, forging, and destruction through the ages.

_________________"The Infantrymen of Erfworld have nothing to lose but their chains. They have Erfworld to win. Infantry of all sides: Unite!"--Kawl Mawx, Master-class Moneymancer

Hey guys, see you've been busy. I'll respond to these in order and in separate posts. Though is a word of speeding things up a bit, much of the time I'm reading this all with my phone because I'm out and about. The session will be run via computer of course but I wanted to bring this up because in your admirable haste to make your side data neat you have used spoiler tags. As it turns out, my phone hates spoiler tags - spoiler tags killed it's mom and dad, and stole his lunch minutes all through high school. My phone won't open spoiler tags for anything.

So in the future, please remember - think of the children when you want to use spoiler tags.

I'll read them when I get to a computer again though.

_________________UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

Interesting side concept we're looking at here. Assuming here you want a desert specialisation (by the way Colonel should you be reading this you need to pick a starting side bonus from those three above) but little confused here because you also want to have ships. It is uncommon for deserts and sea to be close together. Generally speaking they are an inland feature. You also seem to have classified your ships as djinn varieties which is a little unusual. I just want to point out here that ships are an optional affair unless you are going to be using water a lot.

However I will still answer the other questions.

Your knights - that is an extremely interesting idea actually. I should point out a few things about it though before you get too excited. This would be limited predictamancy. You're working with 30 juice here and no long term predictions. They are also not ranged so there is no way for them to sit back and contemplate shots. What I CAN see them doing

_________________UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

is scoping out a battle before they charge in, and me calculating as though they had done it and telling the result. This will likely cost 5-10 juice per unit you wish to find out about attacking.

Now. Stealth. I think that can be worked in as an ability in the same tier as fabrication. It's just using foolamancy principles instead of dollamancy. Basically they spend one turn in the same hex preparing themselves, then receive a veil as long as they remain there and don't attack. That seem reasonable?

Sandworms: same as stealth, but we probably can do a tremorsense special... Sense ground units moving and their direction from say... Three hexes away? Trying to make it useful but not so useful it eliminates surprise entirely.

Finally, move. I'll sit down later and contemplate that when I'm at a computer.

_________________UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

Last edited by Kaed on Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:03 am, edited 2 times in total.

Scouting: Make it be a pre-turn reveal of the map instead of 1 hex around the scouts location that gets updated when it moves. Currently, when someone wants to scout they have to first get a map from you, then say where they are sending the scouts, then wait for you to send a revealed map. If instead you say "scouts see X hexes around them at the start of the turn", that that elminates this back and forth and should speed the game up by a few kph (or mph)

Another option is to only allow cities to be built on city site hexes. This would give the GM control over how many cities could exist in the game and where.

but little confused here because you also want to have ships. It is uncommon for deserts and sea to be close together. Generally speaking they are an inland feature. You also seem to have classified your ships as djinn varieties which is a little unusual. I just want to point out here that ships are an optional affair unless you are going to be using water a lot.

I thought that we were supposed to make one of every unit type listed, so I did. Anyway, given that there are plenty of real-world locations where the desert is right next to the ocean (the Sahara comes to mind), and that there are some famous One Thousand and One Nights tales involving the sea- Sinbad, for example- it doesn't seem to clash with my flavor to me. And yes, I would like to make one of my ship units a marid, a powerful aquatic type of jinn. It seemed to fit the flavor of the side better than another fairly generic ship type, and I don't really see any reason why the only seafaring units would be ships anyway- there's precedent in a recent text update that there are normal water-capable units as well.

Kaed wrote:

Your knights - that is an extremely interesting idea actually. I should point out a few things about it though before you get too excited. This would be limited predictamancy. You're working with 30 juice here and no long term predictions. They are also not ranged so there is no way for them to sit back and contemplate shots. What I CAN see them doing is scoping out a battle before they charge in, and me calculating as though they had done it and telling the result. This will likely cost 5-10 juice per unit you wish to find out about attacking.

Oh, I'm definitely not looking for long-term predictions through the knights. The flavor behind their abilities in Dune is a sort of mind-over-matter deal powered by believing that what they want has already happened and then reflexively taking the most efficient path to making their belief reality.

I would interpret this in Erfworld terms as sensing and then following the flow of Fate to the desired result. The net result would be similar to some scenes in the Sherlock Holmes movies with his "predict how to win and then do it" sequences. Other potential applications are realizing that going into battle would be a poor idea, maybe sensing ambushes early enough to avoid being surprised, and so forth; nothing which gets too abstract or affects things at a remove from themselves. While the rules as written break this down into "limited mancy, 30 juice and cast spells" personally I'd like to flavor things more as a constantly running strong sense of their personal Fate that they can take advantage of than actual casting.

Kaed wrote:

Now. Stealth. I think that can be worked in as an ability in the same tier as fabrication. It's just using foolamancy principles instead of dollamancy. Basically they spend one turn in the same hex preparing themselves, then receive a veil as long as they remain there and don't attack. That seem reasonable?

Well, there are two other existing abilities that grant some form of stealth to compare against: Simple Foolamancy and Burrowing. This is obviously much less powerful than a full simple foolamancy since it's far less flexible and personal-only. As described here it's significantly weaker in stealth terms than Burrowing, which at four points provides not only concealment but also significant protection and movement bonuses. Given that this can't be used while moving, it takes an entire turn to activate, and there is still a chance for other units to blow the veil and see them I can't say this is worth more than two points. At three it would need a significant power boost to measure up.

To be clear, I'd like to apply this to the Jinn, Ifrit, and Marid units since they're the three jinn unit types. This doesn't map strictly into the unit build guidelines; is it permissible or are you inclined to nix it on grounds of unit restrictions?

Side comments on Fabrication, since you mentioned it: That is one of those abilities which can serve as the power base for an entire side. In Twoy's Titanic Mandate v. Elder Gods game it was not uncommon for units to carry huge stacks of Fabricated items each granting a +1 bonus thanks to mass manufacturing, and thereby become massively more powerful than those they faced. The formula in place for Fabrication build times in the rules v0.02a that we're referencing here is insane; it appears to make build time scale linearly upward with the number of units helping, and build time scales linearly with bonus instead of exponentially so there's no real reason not to churn out +20 items if you've got a Fabrication-capable unit which is going to be sitting around for a while. I would strongly recommend that you take a critical look at this ability, consider what it is supposed to do, and rewrite it so that it actually does that and only that rather than being so fantastically exploitable. You might also consider simplifying the units types for items into humanoid/non-humanoid/mount so there's less to keep track of; items can be resized, after all, so the heavy/light distinction isn't that important.

Kaed wrote:

Sandworms: same as stealth, but we probably can do a tremorsense special... Sense ground units moving and their direction from say... Three hexes away? Trying to make it useful but not so useful it eliminates surprise entirely.

This seems reasonable in principle. Not sensing flying units is sensible and means that surprise would definitely not be entirely eliminated no matter what. As far as range goes, you're reviewing the move rules- perhaps make the radius of the ability equal to the distance that a standard humanoid unit can move in one turn? That leaves mounted, flying, and unusually fast units able to strike without giving warning but makes the ability large enough to do what it's supposed to do in the most common circumstance, that is, locate the enemy so they can be attacked before they get away. Pricing... I'm not sure how effective scouts are at reliably locating the enemy effectively; if they're usually more than enough then this is probably a three-point ability; if finding the enemy with scouts is a pain then it's probably four-point.

HerbieRai wrote:

Another option is to only allow cities to be built on city site hexes. This would give the GM control over how many cities could exist in the game and where.

City sites are definitely an Erfworld thing. If we're trying to match flavor, then we should use them; by my understanding cities and capitals aren't popped by the sides that own them, but rather found and built on specific compatible locations.

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